Why Anadarko Petroleum, Roundy's, and XOMA Tumbled Today

Stocks managed to hold up reasonably well today, but news from several companies sent their stocks plunging. Anadarko Petroleum fell 6%, while Roundy's and XOMA both lost 7% on the day. Find out why these stocks bore the brunt of Friday's wrath.

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

Stocks gave investors a bit of a respite today, with the Dow breaking its losing streak and the Nasdaq Composite regaining the 4,000 level on modest gains of a tenth of a percent or less. The market seems stuck in a holding pattern awaiting the next move from the Federal Reserve, but Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC), Roundy's (NYSE:RNDY), and XOMA (NASDAQ:XOMA) all fell substantially due to company-specific events of their own.

Anadarko Petroleum dropped 6% as a bankruptcy court found that the energy company's Kerr-McGee unit could be liable to creditors of Tronox, which Kerr-McGee spun off before Anadarko acquired Kerr-McGee a few months later and which subsequently declared bankruptcy in 2009. The bankruptcy judge found that the spinoff left Tronox insolvent, but the real shock came from the judge's damage estimate of $5 billion to $14 billion. As a result, several analysts downgraded Anadarko's stock today, choosing not to accept the uncertainty that will result from having a massive litigation award potentially hanging over it for years to come.

Grocery chain Roundy's fell 7% as the company filed a registration statement with the SEC covering a potential offering of up to 11 million shares of company stock in a potential future secondary offering. The registration also covers 16.6 million shares of stock that existing shareholders own that could also be sold once the registration statement is approved. The move comes as Roundy's had just hit its best levels in about a year and a half, with shares having more than doubled since the beginning of the year.

XOMA declined 7% as it completed a secondary stock offering, selling 9 million shares at $5.25 per share. The stock immediately opened at the offering price and closed just a couple of pennies above that level. Like Roundy's, XOMA has performed well in 2013, more than doubling on the prospects for its anti-inflammatory antibody gevokizumab and its potential use in treating eye diseases, skin ulcers, and arthritis. The offering could help the small biotech complete its trials in hopes of gaining approval for gevokizumab in the future.

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Dan Caplinger has been a contract writer for the Motley Fool since 2006. As the Fool's Director of Investment Planning, Dan oversees much of the personal-finance and investment-planning content published daily on Fool.com. With a background as an estate-planning attorney and independent financial consultant, Dan's articles are based on more than 20 years of experience from all angles of the financial world.
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